Marrone knows Nassib better than anyone. Which makes his decision to pass him over very telling.

In a quarterback class that every expert says had no true stand out, it made sense for Marrone and Buffalo to go with the player he knows best and knows his system best.

Nassib has issues, namely his deep ball, that need to be fixed if he is going to succeed at the NFL level.

But who better to fix those issues than Marrone and Nathaniel Hackett, the two coaches who have seen them the most? Nassib is like an old car that Marrone and Hackett have had in the garage the last three years. They know every part under that hood, what works and what doesn't.

Marrone had his pick of the litter at pick No.16 (after Buffalo traded with St.Louis) and he chose a stranger instead of a friend.

Welcome to the cold, hard world of the National Football League, Ryan.

"I think a lot of people on the outside were projecting what we were going to do based on my backround and my relationships," Marrone told ESPN's Mike Golic when asked why he passed over Nassib.

"At the end of the day, I thought there were four or five quarterbacks that were going to come out that had the ability to win. At the end of the day, we just had to sit back and say, this quarterback we have (Manuel) is the best fit for us and gives us the best opportunity for what we want to do."

After all they have been through at Syracuse, Nassib gets spoken about in code now. He is "backround and past relationships." Marrone really has moved on from Syracuse in a hurry, hasn't he?

UPDATE: Marrone opened up a bit more on Nassib not get drafted in the first three rounds of the draft at a Friday night media session. The transcript is right here

Marrone also told "Mike and Mike" that Manuel was their guy "right from the beginning" and that the decision "was very easy for all of us."

Now, it is easy to blame Marrone for snubbing Nassib, but he certainly wasn't the only one in on the decision.

Buffalo Bills general manager Buddy Nix made the call. Nix has been adamant for awhile that he was going to put a franchise quarterback in place before he left Buffalo.

Nix is still in charge, but Doug Whaley is the GM in waiting and certainly has influence on the decision. Marrone is the head coach, but he does not have the final say in Buffalo as he did while he was the self-described CEO of Syracuse football.

But let's face it, if Marrone wanted Nassib badly enough, he could have had him.

He is the one who has to coach the quarterback that Nix chooses for him.

Marrone knows Nassib's game inside and out. Nix wouldn't be doing his job if he didn't accept a strong recommendation from his head coach on the player who he knows better than anyone.

It's clear now that recommendation either never came or changed on the path to Thursday night.

Marrone's comments that the choice of Manuel being "an easy one" tells you all you need to know about how hard Marrone threw his fist down on the table in wanting Nassib.

And that's fine. No one is suggesting Marrone had to take Nassib.

E.J. Manuel is bigger, has a stronger arm, and moves better than Nassib. Those qualities tend to win out in a league full of super athletes.

Manuel paints a better picture of what the ideal quarterback in today's NFL is heading for with more and more teams falling in love with the phrase "read option."

This isn't the first time Marrone has stiff armed Nassib.

With Nassib set to be Syracuse's starting quarterback in 2009, Marrone instead brought in Greg Paulus, fresh off four seasons of basketball at Duke, to play out that season.

In the long run, it may have turned out to be the best thing for Nassib's career. He wasn't quite ready to command a football team then and still got to play in a limited role.

Nassib went on to become one of the best quarterbacks in Syracuse history. Paulus praised the way Nassib handled the situation and even Nassib has commented that it was probably the better move for him in the long view even though it stung at the time.

The question is, will the decision by Marrone to go in another direction again produce a similar positive outcome in the long view for Ryan Nassib?